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The European Union’s eHealth Action Plan (COM 2004(356)) called for the member states to draw up their national eHealth Roadmaps by the end of 2006. Finland’s eHealth Roadmap is a continuation of the work with national strategies started in the middle of the 1990s. It gathers together the major policy defi nitions and achievements of the national development work from the last ten years and outlines future challenges in particular in relation to cooperation at the European level.

Finland’s national objective is to secure the access to information for those involved in care regardless of time or place. The means used to achieve that objective have included a comprehensive digitalisation of patient data, development of the semantic and technical compatibility of the electronic patient record systems in regard to the entire content of a record, development of the national health care infrastructure and information network solutions, identifi cation and verifi cation solutions and electronic signature, and also maintaining of information that supports decision-making on the net.

Another major objective is to enable the involvement of citizens and patients, to increase the citizens’ access to information and to ensure a high quality of health information. The measures have included development of a health information portal for citizens, providing citizens an access to their own patient/health records and log information, and enhancement of interactive electronic services.

Finland’s objectives are mainly compatible with the national objectives of other EU member states and the EU level objectives defined by the European Commission. It is characteristic of the Finnish approach to emphasise data security and data protection and to develop the systems in a way that is sustainable from an ethical and juridical point of view. According to the Finnish policy definitions the storing and use of health information is based on networked corporate data with a high data security. The infrastructure for eHealth is comprehensive in Finland.

The Coordination Group expects that the demand for European cooperation will increase in the next few years. It states that in regard to eHealth the Ministry should assume the responsibility for international preparation at the political and strategic level. The expert institutions (Social Insurance Institution, National Authority for Medicolegal Affairs, National Research and Development Centre for Welfare and Health STAKES) should take part in international cooperation in accordance with their national areas of responsibility. The Ministry should organise the coordination of international cooperation and develop the exchange of information so that the various actors involved promote the jointly defi ned objectives in international activities. It must be ensured at the same time that there are adequate resources available for the international cooperation. The Coordination Group proposes organising the cooperation for instance by setting up a subcommittee responsible for international cooperation under the Advisory Committee on Electronic Information Management in Social Welfare and Health Care.